Part 1 of 2 : Megawati, terrorism, UN and security community

Part 1 of 2 : Megawati, terrorism, UN and security community

J. Soedjati Djiwandono, Political Analyst, Jakarta

The following commentary will focus on three main themes of
President Megawati Soekarnoputri's speech before the 58th United
Nations' General Assembly last Sept. 23. These are the issues of
terrorism, of the UN as a world organization and, though only
briefly referred to, Megawati's concept of an Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) "security community".

These themes have been chosen because of the apparent
inconsistency, ambivalence, even contradiction, and lack of
understanding contained therein that marked Megawati's entire
speech.

In his address to Congress after the tragedy of the terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11,
2001, President George W. Bush gave a stern warning to the world:
"Either you are with us, or with the terrorists." He seemed to be
treating world politics according to the old pattern of
bipolarization, like during the now defunct Cold War, thus
recreating a new international politics on the basis of
terrorism.

On the issue of terrorism, Megawati said in her address, "For
quite a long time we believed that international terrorism would
spare Indonesia because we had a tradition of tolerance for human
differences. Now, however, we must face the reality that
Indonesia has become a target of terrorism and, as a result, has
suffered enormous losses in human lives."

This is an implicit admission, or at least an assumption, that
a number of acts of terrorism directed at various targets in
Indonesia since Sept. 11 were linked to international terror
networks; while in Indonesia itself that has yet to be proven.

Indeed, the President noted that "the terrorists -- who are
few but fanatical -- often claim that they are fighting in the
name of Islam". They have to be a mere minority, since Islam --
which teaches equality, justice and the kinship shared by all
humankind -- cannot possibly endorse the indiscriminate killing
of innocent individuals.

As in other Muslim countries, adherents of "mainstream" Islam
in Indonesia practice moderation and are strongly opposed to
violence. However, Megawati also said, "Although they are a small
splinter from the large Indonesian community of Muslim, the
perpetrators of those terrorist acts represent a branch of
international terrorism."

To be sure, Megawati did not refer to terrorism on behalf of
Islam, as many do in Indonesia, with the largest Islamic
community in the world, associating it with the Palestinians in
their conflict with Israel, which is based on an incorrect
perception, as if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of
religion -- ignoring the large number of non-Muslims among the
Palestinians.

However, she did link terrorism to the role or policies of the
U.S. in the Middle East (meaning apparently not only the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict, but also the Iraqi war), which has been the
main source of the injustice that has primarily motivated
terrorism.

She said, "The motives and justifying arguments of their
movement apparently arise from the prolonged unjust attitude
exhibited by big powers toward countries which [sic.] inhabitants
profess Islam, particularly in resolving the Middle East
conflict.

"We should truly be prudent and sensible in the face of such a
long outstanding issue. It is difficult to refute the impression
that the policy on conflict resolution in the Middle East is not
only unjust but also one-sided. Clearly, the Middle East problem
is not a conflict of religions or of religious adherents, though
there might be some religious nuances to the issue."

She added: "We all must admit that the absence of a just
attitude ... in addition to the deficiency of formal means to
channel aspirations, has cultivated a climate in which violence
can grow.

"In our view, this is actually the seed and root of the
problem ... and leads to devastating and tragic acts of
terror .... The war in the Middle East [referring to the Iraqi
war] a few months ago is [sic.] just another reflection of the
situation."

The countries whose citizens have become the main target of
terrorist groups should review their conventional antiterrorism
policies, particularly in dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict.
They should adopt a policy that ensures that all involved parties
are given just and equal treatment.

Indeed, so many eminent Muslims here believe that once the
major powers behave in a more just manner and make clear their
impartiality in the Middle East, then most of the root causes of
terrorism perpetrated in the name of Islam "would have been
resolved".

Terrorism is now an international or even global threat to
humanity. But there is a significant difference in the degree of
terrorism faced by Indonesia and that faced by the U.S.

If there is indeed a kind of terrorism motivated by Islam in
Indonesia, mostly it does not, until proven otherwise, go beyond
national boundaries. It is limited to militant Islamic groups
striving to establish an Islamic state, or at least to impose
Islamic sharia law by violent means.

By contrast, the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, in the U.S. was
believed to have been perpetrated by al-Qaeda under Osama bin
Laden, who was fighting in the name of Islam against the U.S. and
its interests all over the world. He uses terror to try and get
rid of the U.S. presence in the Middle East, particularly Saudi
Arabia, protector of the two holy cities Islam, Mecca and Medina
(Paul L. William, Al Qaeda: Brotherhood of Terror, Alpha Books
and Pearson Education, Inc., 2002)
Bin Laden is also opposed to the Saudi regime and other Arab
regimes such as Egypt, which he thinks are not Islamic but mere
U.S. puppets. While the U.S. presence is associated with Israel's
conflict with Palestine, Israel itself has never been a target of
terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda (Peter L. Bergen, Holy War, Inc:
Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden, London: Phoenix,
2002).

It has been said, however, that bin Laden's movement also has
a global scope directed at the U.S. as a manifestation of
representative of the Western (Christian) world. In that sense
al-Qaeda forms part of the global movement of Islamic
fundamentalism.

This kind of fundamentalism strives after the establishment of
a new world order based on Islamic civilization to substitute the
Western civilization that dominates the present world order,
wrote Bassam Tibi in The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political
Islam and the New World Disorder (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1998).

Something the late Ahmad Khomeini, the Ayatollah's son -- who
died suddenly just as he was assuming the mantle of his father --
said in late 1991 emphasized the fatefulness of the inevitable
struggle with the U.S.: "We should realize that the world is
hostile toward us only for [our commitment to] Islam. After the
fall of Marxism, Islam replaced it, and as long as Islam exists,
U.S. hostility exists, and as long as U.S. hostility exists, the
struggle exists." (Yossef Bodansky, Bin Laden: The Man Who
Declared War on America 1999).